Well, well.
Leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates declined requests to speak to President Biden during the Ukraine crisis, officials say. They both took calls from Putin. https://t.co/McsybyBKw8
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 8, 2022
Granted, there are lots of reasons to avoid Gropey Joe. But honestly, there are more reasons to avoid contact with Putin.
Boy, I sure am glad that the USA managed to achieve a fair bit of energy independence a few years ago. It’d be a damn shame if that had been squandered away, huh.
The way to deal with Russian oil is not to promise not to buy it… but to not to *need* it in the first place. Electric vehicles would be a handy way to go about that… and the way to make electric vehicles on a large scale make any sort of sense would be to have a boatload of shiny new gigawatt nuclear powerplants coming online every year. Any day now, right?
Right?
Some years ago, Obama’s chief of staff pointed out that you never want to let a crisis go to waste, because it presents an opportunity to make changes that you otherwise could not get accomplished. The Russian war presents the United States with several *spectacular* opportunities:
1) Energy independence. Nuclear, fracking, oil exploration on out own turf should be ramped up and made national security priorities.
2) The DoD has fallen *way* behind on weapons development. The M-1 Abrams and the AH-64 Apache date from the 70’s, the Javelin and Stinger from the 80’s, the F-35 from the 90’s. We haven’t developed a new nuke in generations. Time for some new stuff… and fast.
3) Russia has threatened the ISS. Time to either abandon that orbital money pit, or boot the Russians from it and Americanize all aspects of operations and maintenance until such time as sanity prevails in Russia.
4) SpaceX should (and hopefully already is) be recognized as vital to America’s national interests, and thus should have the very best security. Physical protection against sabotage and outright strikes along with protection against theft of secrets should be priority #1 at the CIA and FBI. If recent Russian hijinks lead to this concept being more generally accepted not just at SpaceX but elsewhere, then the Chinese efforts to steal every damn thing will also be hindered. Additionally, SpaceX should spread out: manufacturing and launch sites in Texas, Florida, Vandenberg, Alaska, Colorado, Montana, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Guantanamo as a start, with point-to-point rocket transport sites built near *all* major cities over time. Does using Starship for ballistic cargo/passenger transport make sense? Probably not. Screw it, let’s do it anyway. As government boondoggles go, it would be a very minor one… and one that would *necessarily* lead to major improvements in many technologies.
5) All of the major launch systems that are now in a precarious state due to Russia cutting of the supply of rocket engines? yeah, THAT turned out stupid, huh. Globalization is fine when it comes to cheap toilet paper or Pokemon cards. Rockets? Computer chips? Drugs? No. Shoulda figured this out when the Commie Cough crapped on the planetary logistics system. Long past time to realize that some things need to be done in-house.
6) Democrats are discovering the sanctity of national sovereignty and of arming the Ukrainian populace with fully automatic weapons. These discoveries should be applied here as well: strengthen border security, deport illegals (both those sneaking across the border and those who overstay their visas), and at the very least institute universal reciprocity for concealed carry… and get rid of the NFA and all the gun-grabbery that followed. Defund the ATF; transfer the funds and staff to the INS.
Anyone who disagrees with these policy proposals is clearly a paid Putin shill.